I never intended to have three children. Well, "never" until the fall of 2008 when I became re-acquainted with a childhood sweetheart-in-passing. When Alan and I reconnected on facebook, one of the things we talked about often was children.
Alan had not had any children of his own and his previous marriage had ended for that very reason. He wanted children, she did not, so they parted ways. Since then Alan had begun to let go of the dream of having children of his own and was content. Then in 2008 and early 2009 as we discussed the possibility, I think the idea rather appealed to him and he began to wish again. We talked about it frequently and prayed about it. In January we went on a road trip to the Rio Grande Valley and decided to go across the border, mostly because it seemed an exciting thing to do, but also because he told me tales of knock off designer purses available for pennies. Okay, so he pushed my stingy-deal-getter button. He's a master at pushing my buttons. Not wanting to risk an inspection at the border crossing of his notoriously messy SUV, we hired a car to take us across. These are called pirate taxis, and that sort of added to the "adventure" appeal of a simple shopping trip. (I was oblivious, by the way, to the dangers that are now so well known and publicized on the border towns. That, I think, would have been the limit to my adventurous spirit.)
Our shopping trip seemed boring enough. In fact, I was sort of turned off by the barrenness of the border towns and was beginning to want to go back to Harlingen. But my stomach hurt and we figured it was because we were hungry and decided to take the taxi driver's suggestion of an authentic, yet tourist-approved cafe. Before we even got to the cafe, though, he "ache" turned into downright pain and I threw up. Not a good sign to throw up PRIOR to the meal. The taxi driver was annoyed, to say the least and wanted to pull over to clean out his SUV. I was in agreement, too, as the smell was making things considerably worse. At the pull off my condition got worse and I broke out into a cold sweat and started begging Alan to get the driver to take us back. I must have looked like Death itself, though, because the driver forgot all his English and started talking about hospitals and doctors in frantic Spanish. Panicked, he drove us through what looked like a shady neighborhood and stopped in front of a stucco building with "Emergencia" painted in red. I was pretty sure this was where we were going to meet our end. I felt like Sundance in Columbia, very disappointed, pretty angry and a little desperate.
When we shuffled into the "hospital" I just about turned back around and I'm sure the look on my face was the taxi driver's main motivation in turning us over to someone else's care. He spoke to a nurse in urgent Spanish. lan's Spanish was not good enough to pick up on what was being said; besides, he was rather panicked himself. The nurse escorted us back to a room with a table and some rudimentary instruments. I said "English!" about 500 times until Alan shushed me and gave me a warning look. Finally a nurse said she would get an English-speaking doctor. She took my blood pressure. Then she took it again. When she tried a third time I jerked away and said "DOCTOR!" She left in a hurry and then came right back in and escorted us to another room with a surprisingly modern sonogram machine. I climbed onto the table, then leaned over and threw up again. We looked around for a trash can or basin or anything and settled on a bed pan that had seen better days.
The doctor whisked in, wearing khakis and a blue button down shirt. He spoke English. That was good enough for me. He asked if I was having an appendicitis attack and I said, "No appendix," and showed him the scar from my appendix surgery in 1995. He frowned and told me to take off my pants and shirt. Okay, I'm in pain and I'm throwing up and I'm really worried, but something about taking off my clothes in what I HOPED was a hospital in a Mexican border town was beginning to sound a little scary. I looked at Alan, who was a bit shell-shocked and he shrugged and grabbed my hand. Okey-dokey. Off came the shirt. For some reason I refused to remove my bra. Like that was going to matter in the mass grave. I lowered my pants just enough to expose the part of my abdomen that was screaming in agony, leaned back and closed my eyes. The doctor squirted the gel and I was surprised that it was warm in this seemingly backward facility. Like they didn't have heat or something. The doctor rolled the scope around for what seemed like forever. every time he got close to the most painful area I yelped. Alan squeezed my hand tighter. I looked at him and laughed a little, thinking they would be treating him for a head injury soon, either inflicted by me for getting into this situation or from passing out.
The doctor said something about a "pus" and then left the room long enough to signal to someone else to come in. The second doctor was at least wearing scrubs and a badge and appeared to have been pulled away from another procedure. He mashed around on my stomach and pelvic area enough to make me want to remove his eyeballs with my skinny fingers and feed them to the first doctor. then is what I can only describe as the single most frightening conversation of my life, said that something was inflamed in my pelvic area and they needed to operate. OH HELL TO THE NO! I said, "We'll go back to Harlingen!" The first doctor explained that the taxi driver was long gone and that I didn't have time to get across the border, in case whatever was going on in there ruptured.
I don't remember much from that point in detail. I remember the nurses coming back in and escorting me to yet another room. Apparently this place had not a single wheelchair. I remember climbing on to a table and watching as Alan changed into scrubs behind a partition. I remember a drape over my waist and staring at the ceiling. I remember hearing the doctors speak in Spanish. I remember being scared out of my mind.
At some point I apparently told the doctors I wanted to see what they were doing. One of them said something to the other to which he replied in Spanish "I've given her enough to knock out a rhinoceros!" and then injected more of a milky white solution into my IV, which I do not remember getting. I remember Alan explaining that they were removing a fallopian tube which had several large cysts. I remember him then asking if I was "okay with that?" and saying "Yes, of course, lets do that." I then remember waking up alone in yet another room in excruciating pain and discovering that the nurse call button was not connected to anything. I know this because of the number of times I poked at it over and over as one would poke an elevator button hoping it would do some good. When the nurse finally came in, she gave me what I think was morphine and became my new best friend. I was human again just as Alan walked in a explained everything, as best as he understood it.
I had three cysts about the size of golf balls in one of my fallopian tubes. The tube had torn but there was no internal bleeding and none of the cysts had ruptured. The doctors had removed the tube. It would later be delivered to my room in a jar of stinky liquid. It would stay in Mexico. While I was under the doctor had said the other tube was blocked but that he could open the blockage if we wanted. Alan had given consent and said that he was sure I had agreed as well. This was what I vaguely remembered, although at the time I didn't know what I was agreeing to. The doctor and Alan seemed to be telling me the same thing could happen to the other tube if it remained blocked. I was so high I just nodded and said "Yep. Okay." It wasn't until later that I reminded Alan the tube had actually been cut and cauterized and that the doctor had just performed a reversal on my tubal ligation. When the surgeon appeared the next day, we asked him if this was what had happened and he smiled and said "Yes!" Okey-dokey.
The Mexicans are apparently a lot smarter about medical collections than the Americans are and would not let us leave until we had paid the bill. Alan had a couple of credit cards with him and split the balance between the two and secretly crossed his fingers hoping the cards would not be declined. After almost three days in Mexico with no change of clothes and questionable food, I think he probably would have left me there as collateral. The charges were approved, and in his optimistic way, Alan pointed out that this was about a third the amount we would have paid for a tubal reversal in an American hospital. Since Switchblade Sanchez had not been cutting HIS gut open, I guess he was able to be the optimist. I just wanted to get the hell out of there! A nurse called her son who agreed to transport us back across the border and to our own vehicle for $40. I told Alan I had the cash in my purse as long as the locals had not already taken it. Yep, at this point I was scared and extremely politically incorrect. A very nice middle aged man and his wife showed up within a few minutes and before long we were on our way back to the border.
After crossing to Harlingen and retrieving our car untouched and exactly as we left it, I decided that we had probably used our last bit of luck and insisted that we start back to Austin immediately rather than stay a night in a local hotel. I wanted a shower, but I wanted it in my own bathroom, and 6 hours didn't seem so long to wait. As it turned out, it was a really long 6 hours and I regretted my haste, but it was good to be back in our own bed, safe and sound.
I made an appointment with my local gynecologist for the next week. The nurses were amazed at our story of reckless adventure and I'm pretty sure a couple of them were ready to have us committed. Worse than this would be having to tell our families what we did. Alan was pretty sure his parents or mine would kill him. It brought back fond memories of our teenage years. My doctor inspected the incision and after it healed performed a sonogram and another test running dye through the remaining fallopian tube to determine if it was indeed open. She reported that all seemed alright and that it was possible, although not likely, that we could get pregnant if we wanted. We went home and thought about it for another few weeks and decided to give it a try.
Telling this story cheers me up from my current frame of mind because of the craziness of the adventure, the scariness of the surgery and the hope for being able to have another baby. I'll try not to dwell on the fact that for the next year, every single menstrual period I got broke my heart. Looking back on it, we had put far too much hope into having a baby and our relationship suffered greatly with each disappointment. By the end of November I felt the weight of my looming birthday as some kind of benchmark, after which pregnancy was never again going to be an option. Alan was starting to feel he had wasted his time hoping for a family with me. The disappointment was bitter and poisonous and it killed our relationship. By January we were done. The arguments and resentment were a daily routine. I slept in the guest room more often than not. I think he may have started seeing someone else, or at least seriously considering it. I considered it, too. In February I moved out, but having no place to go and no real plan, I moved in with a longtime friend and her family and sank into depression. I half-heartedly looked for a job. I began planning to move back to Denver where my son lived with his dad.
And then the impossible happened. As I drove back from visiting my parents in west Texas, I realized I'd missed my period. I stopped in a small town and bought a pregnancy test, which I took in the drug store bathroom. It was positive. I frantically began to think back to when I could have conceived and decided it must have been toward the end of January, at the very worst point of our relationship. I stopped long enough to appreciate God's very wicked sense of humor.
For several very long weeks I didn't tell Alan. I wasn't sure he would believe me, and I wasn't sure what I wanted my next step to be. Eventually I decided it would be unfair not to share the information and let him make his own decisions. There have been times when I regretted that decision. My life would have been less complicated if he'd never known. But when I look at Aidan, who was born in October and is now a healthy, happy and absolute joy to us both, I know I made the right decision, if not the easy one.
Its been a long road since then. There is much residual damage in our relationship. We both acknowledge we would not be together now if not for Aidan. I don't really know what lies ahead for us as a family. But I do know that this child, now 15 months old and a miracle in every way, is one of the three best things that ever happened in my life.
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